all right. first, music giant neil young, then icon joni mitchell splitting ways with spotify. and now, brenae brown, the host of two exclusive podcasts says she s hitting pause on releasing new episodes on the platform. the new york times best-selling author apologized to fans in a tweet but stopped short of offering a reason for her decision. brown s move comes after big stars that i just mentioned and others, including prince harry and meghan markle have spoken out about spotify s role in vaccine misinformation spread. cnn s natasha chen joining us now with more on this. how is spotify responding if at all, right now? spotify has not responded to cnn s request for comment, but the platform did give a statement to the new york times on wednesday saying essentially that they have a great responsibility in balancing the safety of the
listeners and the freedom of the creators. also adding that spotify has removed about 20,000 podcasts related to covid since the pandemic began. spotify also said that it regrets neil young s decision to remove his music but hopes to be able to welcome him back. now since then, this has gone far beyond neil young. brene brown now putting out her statement and most recently we re hearing from nils lofgren for bruce springsteen s estreet band. he said we encourage all musicians, artists and music lovers everywhere to stand with us all and cut ties with spotify. of course, lofgren was also part of a band very closely associated with neil young. and also prince harry and meghan markle. they have a deal with spotify to host and produce a number of podcasts for the platform.